


A Collection of Wants

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Post-Episode 11, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 21:07:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14410587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: After her enchantment-enhanced conversation with Fjord and Molly, Nott considers what she knows about magic.





	A Collection of Wants

**Author's Note:**

> Written shortly after episode 11 "Zemnian Nights" aired, but... reasonably canon-compliant anyway, by some stroke of luck.

Nott curls into the corner of her bed and digs her spellbook out of her bag.

Well, it's not really a spellbook. For one thing, it's three pieces of paper that she keeps in the bottom of her alchemy kit. For another, it's never helped her to diagram out her spells like Caleb does; everything falls out of her head the second she tries to write it down. She'd feel stupid (does feel stupid), except that it's easy to pick the magic up once she sees Caleb try it out. Even, sometimes, like with her message spell, to figure out what it is he isn't doing right.

Still, she writes her spells down neatly, because it's what you do. On the back of the third page, she has two marked-out lists: 'Spells for Caleb' and 'Spells for Both of Us,' a tidy collection of wants. First under 'Spells for Caleb' is True Polymorph, written out careful and hopeful and small. Under that she has written out already: _Shield spell. Spell to protect against arrows. Spell for sleeping without nightmares. Invisibility spell. Message for him too?_

Invisibility she also added to 'Spells for Both of Us', along with a bunch of other random thoughts. She's not sure if all of them exist, but she'll cross them off if she learns they don't.

Nott sucks at the end of her pen and boxes out another section: 'Spells for Just Me.' It feels disloyal, somehow, but – she'll share if he asks. She doesn't need to tell him why she wants them. _Spell so Molly can't do that to me anymore._

Carefully, next to it, she pens in _Abgerashun?_ Caleb only ever abbreviates it, just “ab.” or “tr.” dotted in his margins, but Nott doesn't like abbreviations much. They're her words; she wants to be able to look at all of them, whenever she likes. She'll ask Caleb how to spell it.

Under that, she writes _spell to make people like me._ Molly didn't do anything she could see to copy, but if she can figure it out, it would be almost as good as looking like other people. It could have saved her from Watchmaster Norda.

The thing is, Nott thinks, as the pen bleeds ink onto her fingers and the sheets – the thing about what Fjord and Molly did to her is that while it was happening, it felt... good. Safe. Like she had nothing at all to fear from them.

(And then she even told them what she wanted, the wild greedy hope that she's been nursing over months and miles. And they didn't laugh at her. They didn't act like she was out of her little goblin mind. Fjord even said he understood – and people do like Fjord, it's not like it's the same for him, but still. And then they promised to keep Caleb safe. For just a moment, she'd felt all the muscles in her shoulders unbinding. She'd felt light enough to fly.)

It wasn't real. All the tension crashed back into her the second the spell broke. Even if – _if_ – either of them meant any of it, that peace and calm was only magic. Something they did because they don't trust her any more than she trusts them, or any more than she trusts herself.

At the bottom of her wishlist, Nott adds, _a spell to make me less afraid. Enchantment?_ She blows on the page to dry it, wipes the spare ink off her pens and tucks it all back into the bottom of her bag.

It would have been nice if it were real.

 


End file.
